


inside the walls we built

by essektheylyss (midnightindigo)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Family Dinner, Gen, Reclaiming Lost Childhood via Tree Climbing, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26803234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightindigo/pseuds/essektheylyss
Summary: Den dinners are never something that Essek looks forward to, and this time around, his brother is in town.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss & Verin Thelyss
Comments: 15
Kudos: 138





	inside the walls we built

**Author's Note:**

> I'm procrastinating on all of my responsibilites to continue my trend of "Thelyss brother fics that are just things my sister and I do at family events" so hope you enjoy!

“Fancy seeing a fella like you around here.”

Essek has had a very long week, and den dinners are not his favorite events on a good day, and his brother’s voice is at no point the sound he wants to hear coming from thirty feet up to his right. He pauses on the street below the Thelyss grounds to peer toward the top of the garden wall, all iron and stone, toward the figure that stands on the branch of a very old, very large tree that he is certain that he has been pushed out of by Verin himself, who looks very smug to have started off the afternoon with the higher ground.

“I live here,” Essek shoots back, as sarcastic as Verin’s grin, and a shadow shimmers behind Essek’s baby brother. It vanishes, and a moment later Verin vanishes as well, and Essek is too used to the effects of dunamis to do anything more than sigh as he feels a tap on his shoulder. “What are you doing in Rosohna?” he asks as he turns.

Verin’s armor is absent, replaced with a very fine silver-embroidered coat and trousers, which unfortunately means that he’s staying for dinner. “I had a bit of leave to use, so I figured I would stop by for den dinner. It’s been so long since I’ve attended one.”

Many have said that Verin’s smile is contagious, but Essek has long since been immune. He raises an eyebrow. “Yes, because we have both always loved den dinners.”

“Oh, come now, brother,” Verin says, lacing his arm through Essek’s and, to Essek’s chagrin, managing to pull him along with the help of the gentle float. “They weren’t all bad. As you might’ve noticed, I was reminiscing about when we used to climb trees in the garden after the food was gone. Why did we stop that?”

“Because it’s undignified?” Essek offers as they pass through the iron gates. Of all of the den manors, this one has always been the least imposing—his mother has encouraged the ivy to grow up the side and installed increasingly larger stained glass windows over the years, and as much as he was glad to escape the stifling chokehold of this house when he moved out, he cannot help but look at it fondly. It is… beautiful. Even the soaring foliage softens the sharp angles of the building itself, and as the two of them pause to look at the home they occupied for so long, they settle into a more pleasant silence than before. 

Verin hums. “It was because I pushed you, isn’t it?”

The pleasantry is gone as Essek gives him a disgusted look. “Of course it was because you pushed me.”

“I gave you a wonderful incentive to learn that neat trick of yours.”

“You broke my arm.”

Verin waves off his protests. “Mother fixed it for you.”

“It was the principle of the thing.”

As they draw closer to the house, they can hear the light conversation and music inside, and in an eerie mirror of each other, they school their faces into soft smiles to match as they greet the rest of the den. Verin releases his arm to speak with a captain of the Rosohna guard, and Essek tucks it back into his cloak. His side feels empty, suddenly. 

He’d forgotten how much easier this was when he was not the only person drawing attention in any given conversation.

It’s times like these when he thinks Caleb has the right idea, bringing a familiar everywhere, but it had always felt rather like a childish thing to do around his family, who have no reason to fear being in each other’s presence—and now it is because they do not walk the precarious line of secrecy that Essek tiptoes on, but it was no better when he was younger, knowing that no one in the room harbored the same doubts that he has always lived with.

After half an hour of pleasantries and small talk, a servant calls for dinner, and Essek makes a beeline toward where he’s been following Verin glide around the room, smiling and shaking hands and generally acting like Rosohna’s most eligible budding politician. Normally, that’s a role that Essek falls into, but it’s been harder to pick up lately, and he is content to let Verin shoulder most of the attention this evening.

Essek catches Verin’s arm this time, and presses close to him. “Sit next to me,” he hisses under his breath, feeling childish, but he imagines that another lifetime under his belt would not erase the condescending tones that greet them at these events. _Oh, these Thelyss boys, they’re achieving so much. Deirta, how is your youngest doing? So grown up._

Essek had nearly choked on his soup that day, and had to restrain himself from making a snappy retort as his mother responded, earnest and saccharine. _He is the commander of all Kryn forces at the gate of a hellmouth_ , he’d considered answering, but he had a feeling his mother wouldn’t appreciate the comment.

“Wouldn’t dream otherwise,” Verin mutters back, dropping the pretense for half a second to scowl before the smile returns to both of their faces.

It is always strange, seeking out someone in the den who looks like him but knowing that even those who appear younger have lifetimes of experience that he cannot hope to match in this perpetual hierarchy, but with Verin at his side for the first time in over a year, they get through the dinner on exchanged looks of exasperation at some of their elders’ comments and stepping nastily on each other’s toes under the table anytime the other is asked a question.

It’s not a routine that he remembers missing, ever.

He’s not sure if he has been alone this long or if he has grown soft now that he’s made friends.

By the time the places are cleared and the adults—which Essek and Verin have never felt apart of—drift from the table and into the several sitting rooms organized for this purpose.

Verin excuses himself and claps his hands. “Well, I’m going to get some fresh air. Care to join me, brother?”

Essek nods, making his own excuses, and follows him into the gated yard.

From the ground it feels more like a jungle than anything else, and Essek almost sneers when Verin rolls a cigarette—by the smell, it’s a substance that grows outside of Bazzoxan on the edge of the Barbed Fields and nowhere else, and it is very expensive and very pungent—and offers it to Essek. “Light?”

Essek rolls his eyes but uses a spark of magic to set the tip of it alight, and Verin grins, holding it to his lips. “You’ve picked up Father’s habit, I see.”

“Hard not to, when most of my men won’t respect you if you can’t roll a joint,” his brother shrugs, and puts his free hand in his pocket. He certainly looks like their father, broad-shouldered and tall and strong-jawed, everything Essek is not. No, Essek takes after their mother, with bones as thin as a bird’s, light enough to fly.

“I am certain they’d respect you regardless. You’ve always been the charmer of the family.”

“I mean, you’re right,” Verin smirks, but the humor fades quickly. “God, those pretentious fuckholes, eh?”

Essek rolls his eyes. Verin offers him the cigarette, and he hesitates for a moment—but right now it’s just the two of them, and no one around to yell at either of them, distracted as they are with people to whom they give the time of day.

He takes the cigarette and takes a drag of it. He hasn’t smoked in a long time, but he manages not to choke on the taste, as strong as it is. “Those pretentious fuckholes,” he agrees, passing it back. 

Verin pauses, peering around at the dark garden, and Essek doesn’t look for the tree on the skyline with its bright lights. They may as well not be in the city here, where ragged eucalyptus trees obscure the world outside, and willows drape over the walls. “It was not so bad a place to grow up,” Essek says softly, and Verin shrugs.

“In this garden? No, not at all,” he agrees. “Those dinners, though…” he jerks a thumb back at the open door, where light spills out but doesn’t reach their feet. He takes another drag.

“Yes, well, at least you have escaped them, for the most part.”

“And why haven’t you?”

The question hits him as if his brother had body slammed him, as he’s done on these grounds on many occasions, but Essek just freezes in place there.

“Because I have responsibilities, Verin.”

“Bullshit.”

“Because I cannot do the research I want to do in any other place.”

“And you’ve read every fucking book in the conservatory,” Verin raises an eyebrow. “And every book in the Bastion they’ll let you get your hands on. What the fuck do you think is still here for you?”

And now Essek does want to find that glowing tree, but it’s too obscured by the silhouettes of trees here that occupied his childhood. He knows that it is atop an empty home, but it is a beacon, and he has spent many evenings on his tower walkways, yearning for it like a moth.

“Let’s climb a tree,” he says, and Verin grins, stamping out at least two gold worth of cigarette beneath the heel of his boot. His mother would not be thrilled to see a cigarette smashed into the limestone garden walkway, but they will be long gone by the time she finds it.

By the time they find themselves on the longest bow of the largest tree, the only spot in the garden that is completely invisible from the patio doors, Essek has several scrapes and bruises, and Verin taunts him for being out of breath.

“You would _die_ in Bazzoxan,” he laughs, and pulls a flask from beneath his cloak.

“And you’re going to die of substance abuse,” Essek snaps back, knowing the comment has very little bite as he swipes the flask and drinks. “Do you always carry multiple forms of getting hammered on your person?”

“Oh, only when I’m home,” Verin grins, and Essek can’t blame him.

“You will be thrilled to hear,” Essek says, and holds the flask out of Verin’s reach while he takes another swig, “that I have acquired friends.”

Verin stops reaching for the alcohol and gapes at him. “Well I’ll never.”

Essek rolls his eyes. “Decency looks bad on you, Verin, please continue to swear. I’m going to get hives from you trying to maintain your manners.”

“Who the fuck would wanna be friends with you?”

“That’s much better.”

“Essek,” Verin whines, sounding a century younger than he is, and pushes Essek’s shoulder. This branch is broader than either of them, but it is also fifty feet off the ground, and Essek grips the bark of the tree. He lets Verin take his flask and points out the tree in the distance, the brightest thing in Rosohna.

“The Mighty Nein have become something of local heroes,” he says, and smiles fondly. He knows Verin’s eyebrow has climbed his face in disbelief, but he kicks the bow of the tree with his feet and feels like a kid for the first time in decades. Even after he learned to bend gravity to his whims, he never escaped the weight of his life, and here in this tree with his little brother he thinks maybe one day he might. “They are occupying a den house, when they are here, though at the moment I believe they are in the Menagerie Coast.”

“And they _like_ you?” Verin asks, taking a drink himself. “Are they stuffy?”

“No, not at all,” Essek bristles. “It comes as a surprise to me as well, in fact, that they like me.” He hopes that isn’t merely wishful thinking, but that isn’t a fear he can express to Verin. 

“They’re those fucking weird mercenaries, right? The ones who orchestrated the peace talks?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.” Verin sits and stares at the tree for a long minute, then punches his brother in the shoulder hard enough that Essek massages the area and glares. “Well I’ll be damned.”

They sit in silence for a while longer. Footsteps sound on the limestone below, and both of them hold their breath as their mother’s voice floats up to them. “Essek? Verin?”

Verin pulls a face, trying to see if he can get Essek to break composure and give them away, but finally Deirta turns back inside, and they catch the remnants of her voice before it’s swallowed by the crowd, “They must’ve run off. You know how the boys are—“

“By the Light,” Essek sneers beneath his breath, and Verin snorts.

“I’m serious, Essie,” Verin says, and the nickname grates against his nerves as he reminds himself never to introduce his brother to the Nein, and especially not Jester or Beau. “Why the fuck are you still here?”

“Mother would be heartbroken if I left. You know that.” _She’d also be heartbroken if she found out her son was a traitor_ , a voice in his head that sounds uncannily like Caleb’s says. Caleb has never spoken so harshly to him, not even when he discovered his betrayal, and yet somehow every voice to his own self-hatred has spoken in a Zemnian accent as of late. He prefers to ignore digging too deeply into that particular aspect of his mind. 

“So, what, you’re going to stick around until Father returns, continue to pretend like you have to make up for her husband’s death—“

“Don’t I?” Essek snarls, cutting his brother off. “Who else is going to do it?”

“If they want to act like we haven’t even reached our first century, then it’s stupid to go about looking for ways to try to prove it,” Verin growls. “Why should we punish ourselves for their sins?”

“I am only punishing myself for my own.”

“You didn’t fucking force Father to go get himself killed!”

Essek snatches the flask back and drinks what feels like half of it. It’s sweet, heady liquor, and it coats his throat like honey, without the punishing sting of some of Verin’s other choices for alcohol that he has drunk in the past. “Can we pretend like we can get along for one evening?” he asks, weary, and hunches forward.

Verin pokes him in the ribs. His cloak and mantle are downstairs in the foyer of the manor, and he feels small and fragile without the armor they provide. “You’re only not getting along because you know I’m right, brother.”

And perhaps he is, but Essek can’t let Verin tell him he’s not guilty of something, because he can’t tell Verin how far gone his innocence is. 

“How old do you think this tree is?” he asks, thinking someone like Caduceus might know, but he has never been one for botany. He’s had other interests to pull his attention, even when he has investigated this kind of topic, generally for understanding components or potion ingredients.

“Not as old as Mother,” Verin chuckles darkly. 

He wonders if his mother knew this tree as a sapling, a tiny thing. She has always had a green thumb, unlike either of them, and he wonders if some of his older siblings—not that they ever really call themselves that, but others that his mother has borne—have ever sat where the two of them sit, if this tree has seen generations of Thelyss children, climbing it to escape over the walls. 

They never really did escape, not when these ghosts of their childhood follow them into adulthood, but it is nice to sit here, out of the reach of it all, and pretend.

“How did Mother manage to raise two heretics?” he asks, and Verin laughs again.

“By loving her god more than her children.”

Essek hands him the flask, and he tucks it back into his cloak, out of sight of their mother and the other untouchable elders of their family, who have spent the evening sipping on rice wine. 

“Do you want to stay with me tonight?” Essek asks, suddenly feeling an obligation to reach out further, and Verin gives him a twisted grin.

“I don’t know that either of us will enjoy that,” Verin says. “But we’ve spent several hours together without completely leaping at each other’s throats, so I’d call that progress.”

“I have not wanted to leap at your throat,” Essek admits. 

“Then why did you?”

He shrugs. “I do not think I’ve figured that out yet.”

“Well,” Verin grins. “When you do, you know where to find me.”

The evening has cooled slightly, though the temperature rarely differs much with the darkness, and they peer up at their artificial sky through the leaves.

Essek has ideas of why he could never seem to get along with his brother, but he is too tired of the dinner and the pleasantries to dwell too much on them tonight. Perhaps tomorrow, he can see Verin again, if he’ll allow it, but because he kept Verin at arm’s reach, Verin has long since given up on trying to broach that distance in anyway that Essek knows how to accept.

“I think they’re beginning to leave,” Essek says finally, watching a few members of the den trail out through the gate and into the Rosohna night. “I think I’ll get going.”

“Yes, that does seem your style,” Verin says, and Essek can’t argue with that.

“It was good to see you, Ver,” he says gently, and he thinks he managed some sincerity, because Verin looks almost happy at that. 

“Did your new friends replace you with a clone?” his brother teases, and Essek snorts. Verin grabs him around the shoulders roughly, and for a moment Essek thinks he’s about to throw him out of the tree, but he just hugs him and presses a large, annoying kiss to his temple with a grin.

“Oh, fuck off,” Essek snarls, but he laughs as he pushes his brother away.

“You’re _swearing_ now?” Verin tugs at his eyelid to see if he can find something wrong, and Essek hisses and shifts away on the branch. “Definitely a clone.”

Essek waves him off as he crouches on the branch. “Would you like to see something I learned from them, actually?” he asks, holding himself steady with his hands. He prays he hasn’t over calculated his own magical control—this isn’t exactly something he has tested, only something that Jester described to him in detail while on the boat for two days, and with a different spell in any case. Still, it’s the last thing Verin would expect from him, so he grins wickedly, and his brother narrows his eyes.

“I suppose?”

And Essek jumps off of the branch.

Fortunately it’s a clear shot to the ground, though he narrowly passes several bows only a feet off, and he is very glad he’s calculated correctly when he waits—ten feet—twenty feet—shouts out a quick incantation, and vanishes into a puff of smoke.

He materializes in a three-point landing on the ground, his ankles and wrist taking a bit of a jolt from the momentum, but his brother is shouting at him incredulously and he grins as he stands, just as Verin passes from shadow to shadow to the ground with an echo, which disappears into the night.

“Who the fuck taught you that? I’ll kill ‘em!” Verin snaps, as Essek brushes off his hands calmly, hiding the pain in his wrist, and quirks an eyebrow.

“I’d like to see you try,” he says. “If Jester is to be believed, Fjord survived assassination with that trick.” He doesn’t explain that Fjord also was killed a short time later, but Verin just stares at him as though he has seem an entirely new side of his brother.

“Someday I’d like to meet your fucking friends,” Verin grins, and throws his arm around his brother’s shoulders to guide them back into the house.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Lemme know your thoughts!


End file.
